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| Photo by Alessandro Paderni |
Dateline Italy Moroso just opened an amazing new store in Houston, its first Texas location. The company's creative director, Patrizia Moroso, is one of the most innovative talents in the furniture business, teaming up with artists and architects such as Ron Arad and Patricia Urquiola to create designs. In the course of writing about her new store, I had a chance to talk to her by phone from her new house in Udine, Italy, where her family's 60-year-old business is based. She loves to talk about furniture design, but it's her house that gets her most excited. Designed by Urquiola — the Spanish architect who has been Moroso's best friend for ages — the house is set inside a wild, abandoned garden, which she's left intact. “When I saw it, I called Patricia right away and told her I wanted her to design a house for me," she says. "I wanted to feel like I was living in the garden."
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| Photo by Alessandro Paderni |
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| Photo by Alessandro Paderni |
Moroso wanted the house to disappear into its wooded setting, so Urquiola clad the 10,000 square foot abode in cedar with a black painted roof, which Moroso likens to tree bark after a rain. Windows and doors are painted oxblood red, “like the leaves,” she adds. The black and red palette is Moroso’s favorite, and the red reminds her especially of the color of the dirt in Africa, where her husband Abdou Salam Gaye is from (together they have three children).
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| Photo by Alessandro Paderni |
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| Photo by Alessandro Paderni |
It’s an environmentally conscious house, with cork-insulated walls, solar panels and a cistern for watering plants. Inside, nature is a large part of the design scheme. “I asked Patricia to make the biggest windows possible, so that I could feel like I was living in the garden,” she says. “Many of the walls are totally glass. In summer, it’s like living in a jungle. In the winter, it’s like living in the snow.”
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| Photo by Alessandro Paderni |
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| Photo by Alessandro Paderni |
The first floor is all about hosting family and friends, whether for small gatherings or extended stays. There’s a catering kitchen, indoor pool, guest room and a Turkish bath — the Middle Eastern variant of a steam bath. The children’s playrooms are nearby and a main seating area includes furniture designed by Urquiola and contemporary Iranian rugs. A conversation pit, inspired by Gaye’s African heritage, features a red, black and oak palette, along with an oversize photograph by Boubacar Touré Mandémory, a contemporary artist included in Moroso’s “M’Afrique” exhibition for the 2009 Milan furniture fair.
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| Photo by Alessandro Paderni |
Upstairs are the private family quarters that feature a small living room, dining room and kitchen, along with bedrooms. Urquiola corralled Moroso’s collection of one-off furniture by the designers she works with including Ron Arad, and a mis-mash of prototypes and factory rejects. “Patricia made everything clean and organized out of my mess, because I have a lot of things I love: big pictures, prototypes of furniture. Everything comes from the company. I can change out furniture anytime I want.” Inspired by modern houses from the 1950s, the interiors are “very clean, but very warm with lots of wood,” says Moroso. “In the end, Patricia did the perfect, simple house.” moroso.it
